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The quarrying operation may generate cash income for people in rural areas, but also carry risks for the citizens, environment, and economy. The study aims to investigate whether there are differences between the characteristics associated with reported quarry participation and reported positive monthly income from quarrying in Kinyenze and Lugono villages of Mvomero district in Tanzania. A total of 142 households were surveyed, with 137 households giving direct participation responses and 8 out of 87 households not having an income recorded. The amount of money estimated on the questionnaire was in Tanzanian shillings and is regarded as the monthly income from the quarry, as the person estimated it, but the date of the event and the net profit did not have to be recorded separately. The study employed a quantitative method approach. A two-part approach was used to estimate participation, using Probit and the log of observed positive income in separate equations. The negative association was between education and participation, as well as between farming experience and participation. For those participants who had positive experience in farming, the income was found to be negatively related to them, with imprecise estimates for age and land access, and the adjusted contrast for village was not significantly different from zero. Poor precision and generalisability due to the small sample of cross sections and lack of income responses. These are set connections, not causal effects or measures of welfare. Further surveys should specify the income recall period, record the sampling and consenting process and separately account for labour inputs, seasonality and costs and revenues.
This study examined the relationship between quarry involvement and household consumption in Kinyenze and Lugono villages, Mvomero District, Tanzania, in the survey of June 2026. There were 142 household records, and 137 of these had direct participation responses, with 86 of the households having observed food expenditure and 50 not observed. Blank non-food components were assigned a value of zero, and expenditure components were aggregated and divided by the size of the household. Augmented inverse-probability weighting (AIPW) was a variant of participation and outcome models that were adjusted for age, sex, marital status, education, household size, birthplace and village. The adjusted consumption difference was TZS 11,243 per person per month (95% percentile bootstrap confidence interval: TZS 549 - 20,764, and normal approximation p = 0.022). The estimated value of food expenditure was positive, while the estimates of log consumption and the asset/access index were imprecise. The sensitivity point estimates were not only positive, but the percentile interval for the nonlinear specification contained zero. The findings are qualified by residual covariate imbalance, an effective sample size of the controls weighted = 30.3 and uncertainty in reporting expenditures and a limited number of bootstrap replications. Temporal order and the exclusion of unmeasured confounding are not established by AIPW. The conclusion is based on adjusted cross-sectional relationships, rather than causal effects and/or evidence of full welfare improvement. There is a need for long-term studies with documented sampling, comprehensive expenditure calculation and direct evaluation of the costs of the occupation and environment.
Midstream oil and gas firms in South-South Nigeria face a persistent paradox of resource wealth coexisting with weak organizational sustainability. Chronic oil spills, gas flaring, operational inefficiencies, and fractured social contracts with host communities collectively underscore the urgency of identifying strategic antecedents of sustainable performance in this sector. This study investigated the relationship between ambidexterity and organisational sustainability of midstream oil and gas firms in South-South, Nigeria, with information technology infrastructure as a moderating variable. The proxies of ambidexterity were exploitative ambidexterity and explorative ambidexterity, while the proxies of organisational sustainability were environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and social sustainability. The study was anchored on contingency theory, dynamic capabilities theory, the moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability, and the technology-organization-environment framework. Underpinned by the positivist philosophical paradigm, a cross-sectional survey design was adopted, with primary data collected from 274 middle-to-top management staff drawn from 56 midstream oil and gas firms registered with the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria in South-South, Nigeria, Seven null hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of significance using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling via SmartPLS 4.1.1.7. The findings revealed that exploitative ambidexterity has a strong, positive, and significant relationship with both environmental sustainability and economic sustainability, but a weak, non-significant relationship with social sustainability. Explorative ambidexterity exerted a strong, positive, and highly significant effect on economic sustainability and social sustainability, but a negligible, non-significant effect on environmental sustainability. Information technology infrastructure exerted no significant moderation effect. The study recommended that management teams, operations directors, and HSE officers should institutionalize exploitative ambidexterity as a core environmental sustainability strategy by conducting regular internal environmental performance audits, and investing in incremental improvements to pipeline integrity monitoring systems, gas flaring reduction technologies, and spill containment infrastructure.
This study investigated the relationship between strategic flexibility and organizational resilience of indigenous airlines operating at Port Harcourt International Airport, with technology adoption serving as the moderating variable. The independent variable, strategic flexibility, was measured using resource flexibility, coordination flexibility, and operational flexibility, while the dependent variable, organizational resilience, was measured using adaptive capacity, absorptive capacity, and robustness. Technology adoption was operationalized through Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure Capability and Digital Innovation Adoption. A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted. The target population comprised 385 management and operational staff drawn from six indigenous airlines operating at Port Harcourt International Airport. Using the Taro Yamane formula, a sample size of 196 respondents was determined and proportionately allocated using Bowley's proportional allocation technique, while simple random sampling was employed in selecting respondents. A structured questionnaire served as the primary instrument for data collection. Out of the 196 questionnaires administered, 162 valid responses were used for analysis. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 30 and SmartPLS 4.0. Descriptive statistics were used for univariate analysis, while Spearman Rank Order Correlation and Partial Correlation Analysis were employed to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that resource flexibility and operational flexibility had significant positive relationships with all dimensions of organizational resilience, whereas coordination flexibility significantly influenced only organizational robustness but had no significant relationship with adaptive capacity and absorptive capacity. The study further found that IT Infrastructure Capability and Digital Innovation Adoption strengthened the relationship between strategic flexibility and organizational resilience after statistical control, indicating the strategic importance of technology adoption in enhancing organizational resilience. It recommends that airline management should strengthen resource allocation flexibility, operational agility, organizational learning, digital innovation, and information technology infrastructure to enhance adaptability, absorptive capacity, robustness, and long-term organizational sustainability within Nigeria's aviation industry.
Purpose: This study identifies the determinants of business performance and the challenges faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Papua New Guinea (PNG), a Pacific island economy characterised by geographic fragmentation, infrastructure deficits and a large informal sector.
Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey of 100 SME owners and managers in Lae City, Madang and Goroka commercial centers measured access to finance, government support, entrepreneurial competence, and infrastructure and market environment by five-point Likert statements, against a five-item business performance scale. Frequencies, weighted means and standard deviations described the data. Pearson correlation and ordinary least-squares regression tested the determinants.
Findings: Entrepreneurial competence (WM = 3.85; β = 0.35, p < .001) and access to finance (WM = 2.60; β = 0.26, p = 0.004) were significant positive predictors of performance; government support was also significant (β = 0.24, p = 0.007), while infrastructure and market environment (the lowest-rated construct, WM = 2.25) was not significant in the multivariate model (p = 0.538), reflecting a binding structural constraint common to all firms. The model explained 41% of variance (adj. R² = 0.39, F = 16.78, p < .001).
Key challenges included costly formal finance, inconsistent policy implementation, unreliable power and transport, and law-and-order costs.
Practical and social implications: SME growth requires a dual strategy - building owner-manager financial and planning capabilities while removing external bottlenecks through targeted finance, streamlined regulation and infrastructure investment.
Originality/value: The study offers rare empirical evidence on SME performance determinants in the Pacific Islands, extending resource-based and institutional theory to an under-researched context.